A Week With My New Apple iPad: I Like it But Don't Love It

The stock market is going crazy today over Apple's higher than expected earnings -- I just looked and at this moment the stock price is already up about 6% since opening today and has more than doubled in price in the past year. The primary driver of this success is the iPhone, the stories say, along with a big increase in PC sales and optimism about the more than 500,000 iPad's sold.

I bought an iPad last week because I love my iPhone so much (I just got it about 7 or 8 months ago, and the user experience never ceases to impress me -- everything about it is great except the battery life) and also because I figured that, since I was going to have a lot of time on hands recovering from my surgery, it would be fun to have a cool new to toy. The rave reviews for it in the theNew York Timesand Wall Street Journal convinced me that it would be a great device for occupying my time, providing a handy way to read books, watch movies, read newspaper and magazine stories, casually surf the net, play some games and so on. And as I owned an iTouch for years, I loved it and often said "Wow, a giant version of this would be awesome."

So one of the first things I did after getting home from Cleveland was to buy an iPad. I have been using it a few hours a day for a week now. I like it but love it far less than expected, to the point that I am thinking of selling the modest number of Apple shares I bought the day it was announced that Steve Jobs was taking leave (I believed that Apple had built such a strong organization that it would be fine without Jobs)and the stock plummeted to around $80 (it is about $260 right now, this is one of my rare smart investments). I am thinking, solely based on my experience with the iPad, that perhaps it is time to sell my stock (although I hesitate I because the iPhone is so great and part of me wonders that, even if the iPad does not turn out to be such a huge success, if the lessons learned from developing it will make the iPhone ever greater).

Why am I so lukewarm about the iPad after a week? In short, the combination of the surprisingly heavy weight and the glare on the screen make using it for any length of time a constant battle for comfort -- the result is a surprisingly bad user experience despite all the hype to the contrary. I am annoyed and uncomfortable whenever I use the thing for more than 5 or 10 minutes. Claims that it is a laptop killer strike me as dead wrong. The software is great but using the thing sucks in many ways.

The first day I had it, I rented a movie I have always loved, Blade Runner, and tried to watch it for over an hour before simply giving-up. I struggled to get in the right position where I could see it perfectly without glare and get in position where I did not have to hold the surprisingly heavy thing up in the air in the perfect position. After carefully piling up pillows on my lap, and adjusting them, I got it just right, until I got up to got to the bathroom, and readjustment took another 5 minutes. A laptop, buy the way, would have been much easier because you can adjust and hold the angle screen more easily.

Then, I started reading books. It especially sucks for that -- if reading books is important to you, do it the old fashioned way or buy a Kindle. It's not bad for reading a quick newspaper story or two, but is awful for prolonged reading. I am currently reading a great book called Open by Andre Agassi on the iPad -- the best sports memoir I have ever read. Fortunately, because we also have Kindle, I was able to get it (for no additional charge) and all the books other books we bought for the Kindle moved onto my iPad (which was one reason I bought it). My wife mostly uses the Kindle, but I use it sometimes, and I can tell you that using it for reading books provides a VASTLY superior experience to the iPad. The Kindle is so much lighter, comfortable for me to hold in any position, especially holding it in the air for long periods in various positions (as I have been doing) as I read it in bed or sitting. In contrast not only does the weight of the iPad make it uncomfortable to read for even short periods in many different the same positions where a book or Kindle would work well, getting it positioned just right to avoid the glare adds a second variable to the struggle (a problem the Kindle's non-glare screen largely avoids, even though it lacks the beauty of the iPad screen) -- one that is often more vexing the wright or, to be more precise, creates a bad human experience for the user as you try to deal with these two challenges at once. Right now, my plan is to finish Open, but I will probably never try reading another book on the iPad again: destroying one of my greatest pleasures with constant discomfort seems like a ridiculous thing to do to myself again.

Note the thing I like the IPad best for is it provides an instant and beautiful way to to surf the web, so I am using it right now as a second machine to help me figure out which links to remove from my blog and and how to reorganize it on my laptop, and having the second screen on the iPad is much easier than switching back and forth between tabs in a browser on one machine. The iPhone navigation is also fantastic in the larger format. And the iPad provides wonderful opportunities for "social" internet surfing. Rather than huddling around a monitor or passing back and forth that tiny iPhone, the iPad is wonderful for sharing the Internet with others -- we used it the other day to show my 80 year old mom my daughter's prom pictures, and it was great for passing around, as the screen is dazzling and it is perfect for people to hold for short periods. So for easy access and instant access to the web, social surfing, and that wonderful iPhone browsing experience made even more wonderful, I love it. I also quite like the keyboard.

But for just about everything else so far, I find it a very awkward device, lousy for movies and books because of the blend of glare and weight. Also note that after my wife used it just briefly, she usually refuses to pick it up because "it is too heavy and the glare drives me me nuts." So I am a bigger fan than her of this device.

Others, of course, may have a different experience and I am not quite ready to say I am sorry I bought it. But part of me wonders, for a just a a few hundred extra, bucks I could have got one of the new Apple laptops, and especially because we have a Kindle, it might have been a better use of my money. I will keep experimenting and as I said I do like some things about the iPad, but my advice at the moment is that it is not a must have device.

I wonder if my experience with the iPad is consistent with others who bought or used the device. Let me know what you think.

Hi Bob
Thanks for the review, although I should perhaps read it before buying my iPad. Having had it for four days I tend to agree with the critics that call it an "iPhone for geriatrics". However, what I see is that when Apple has fixed a few, fatal, flaws this could easily become a cash generator. Being a professional facilitator and lecturer, this machine would be fabulous if it had a remote control, a little more advanced Keynote, the possibility to charge and be connected to a projector simultaneously. There's a huge academic world who have already bought in to the Apple concept and they could benefit from this.
All said and done, I should have bought the iPhone4 and waited with the iPad
Morten

I had the same reaction when I played with the iPad at the Apple Store. Too heavy, screen too glossy, ... And I also wondered how I'd use it between my iPhone and my Mac laptop. Additionally, I love my Kindle and I could see that the iPad was much heavier and that it provides much less clear text. I don't see the iPad as a game changer the way the iPhone was.

I had the exact same conclusion as you. I'm a big fan of Apple products and have an iPhone, MacBook Pro, iMac, even AppleTV - but the iPad is a big disappointment. Typical Apple product - SEXY harware and elegant interface. The touch interface is addictive but at the same time it is no more efficient or effective for the majority of tasks (Google Earth on the iPad would be fantastic).

The novelty wears off and mine is going back today. It's fun to browse the web but for $700 it needs to be useful and without flash I can't do many of the things I would want with such a device (Hulu, Flip videos, ESPN3 sports streaming, etc etc).

Agreed that its terrible for reading books. People realize you can read books on a PC or Mac with the Kindle app right? You could buy $700 worth of books and just read them on your laptop. The Kindle is far superior for book reading.

I'd sell the stock. I think Android + Flash will deliver a must better and more useful experience. Apple has gone too far with the closed-system approach and we're looking at a repeat of Mac vs. PC with App Store vs Android. I think the Android path will be more rewarding to the end user.

I don't think I would sell stock just yet. I believe based on the recent leaks that Apple still has a few big releases to come. However, I, too, am not surprised by your review. I'm reminded of all the jokes about MSFT and how no one should upgrade their windows OS until the 1st patch comes out. It seems Apple products are starting to get the same rep: don't buy the first gen, wait for them to work out the kinks.

I'm not surprised by your review, but I wouldn't sell just yet. Don't forget this is a 1st gen device and the iPhone wasn't exactly universally lauded when it came out either. Plus, that 4G iPhone accidentally left in a bar last week looks rather fantastic, as does the preview we've had of iPhone OS4.

Thanx for the detailed review, Bob. I've been debating trading in my Kindle 1 for an iPad, and waiting to hear more feedback from users. I think the comparison to other devices will ultimately put iPad in an unfavorable light, as it is none of the things to which we've grown accustomed. Perhaps your mom is the best target market: occasional users who won't use it for long periods and who won't generate content. It's a new class of device, and I think it's biggest impact will be to have us see all content as a multimedia experience. As for AAPL stock: I think revenue and profits will be driven by iPhone for some time, with all other products being seen as further evidence that this is the company to point us to the communications future.